Charles George Gordon

English military leader

• Born: January 28, 1833
• Birthplace: Woolwich Common, England
• Died: January 26, 1885
• Place of death: Khartoum, Sudan

Gordon is remembered primarily for his dramatic death in the British defense of Khartoum. All the associations one might make with a man of the British Empire during the Victorian age—soldier, statesman, and adventurer—were forcefully expressed in his life.

Early Life

Charles George Gordon was the fourth son of eleven children born to Henry William Gordon and Elizabeth Enderby. His mother, for whom he had a special affection, came from a rather prosperous merchant family, and his father was an officer in the Royal Artillery. His grandfather and great-grandfather had served in the military—the latter having fought with General James Wolfe at Quebec. It was hardly surprising, therefore, when young Gordon decided to follow in the steps of his paternal ancestors and chose to pursue his own career in the military.

At the age of fifteen, Gordon entered Woolwich Academy, where he soon became better known for his volatile temper and impetuous pranks than for his scholarly achievements. When he was graduated in 1852 as a sublieutenant in the Royal Engineers, he was posted first to Chatham and then to Pembroke. His first combat experience came in early 1855 in the Crimea, where he quickly established a reputation for bravery and almost reckless courage. He was cited for special distinction by his own government, received the French Legion of Honor, and won the friendship and admiration of future field marshal Garnet Wolseley.

Life’s Work

After the war, Gordon spent almost two years in Bessarabia and Armenia surveying and mapping the new boundaries created by the 1856 Treaty of Paris . Following his return to England, he was promoted to captain and made adjutant at the headquarters of the Royal Engineers at Chatham. At the age of twenty-five, Gordon was described by those who knew him best as a man who was absolutely fearless, who possessed boundless energy, and who had a great capacity to adapt and survive under the most trying circumstances. His courage, energy, and durability were attributes that would serve him well in the future. He was of average height—approximately five feet, nine inches—with brown curly hair, a small mustache, and a thin beard that served to accentuate a noticeably square jaw. Undoubtedly, Gordon’s most striking physical feature was his vivid blue eyes, which, according to Wolseley, “seemed to court something while at the same time they searched the inner soul.” Whatever the eyes may have disclosed about Gordon, they revealed to him a world cast in infinite shades of gray, for he was color-blind.

Gordon left his post at Chatham in July, 1860, when he was ordered to China , where the third in a series of trade wars between the British and the Chinese had been raging for almost two years. He arrived in Hong Kong in September, only two months before the conflict came to an end, and was subsequently assigned to the Tianjin (Tientsin) area. In early 1863, he received permission from the British government to enter the service of the Chinese emperor, whose forces were attempting to crush the Taiping rebels. Assuming command of a rather modest force known pretentiously as the Ever Victorious Army, Gordon won a series of brilliant victories over the rebels and gave substance to what had earlier been an empty title. His campaigns in China made him at once a hero and a legend. The small rattan cane that he always carried into battle became known as the “Wand of Victory,” and he would forever more be known as “Chinese Gordon.”

When he returned to England in early 1865, Gordon received a grand reception from the British public but found himself almost ignored by the War Office. In fact, for the next ten years, he received assignments that hardly matched his demonstrated military abilities. He spent almost six years as Royal Engineer in command at Gravesend and later served for three years as governor of Equatoria, where he waged a partially successful campaign to end the slave trade there.

Gordon had little more success with the slavers in the Sudan , where he served as governor-general from January, 1877, to January, 1880. During those three years, however, Gordon grew to love the Sudanese people and they to revere him. Appropriately enough, it would be in defense of the Sudan and its people that he would wage his last campaign in 1884-1885. In the years that intervened, the government once again seemed unable to find a place for him. He served briefly as secretary to Lord Ripon, viceroy of India, returned to China in the summer of 1881, and in the spring of 1882, having been promoted to the rank of major general, went to South Africa to help bring the war with the Basuto to an end.

Gordon returned to England in the fall of 1882 for a brief visit, and in January, 1883, he traveled to Palestine, where he remained in virtual seclusion for almost a year. He both relished and needed this time, for though he was a public figure, Gordon remained throughout his life a private individual. He once confided while in Cairo, following his appointment as governor-general of the Sudan, that

the idea of dinner in Cairo makes me quail. I do not exaggerate when I say that ten minutes per diem is sufficient for all my meals and there is no greater happiness to me than when they are finished.

Gordon was also a deeply religious man, though he never joined the Church or belonged to any particular sect. In his mind, “Catholic and Protestant are but soldiers in different regiments of Christ’s army.…” He believed that the Bible was directly inspired by the Holy Spirit, and much of his time in Palestine was spent attempting to locate the exact site of the Crucifixion, the tomb of Christ, and the Garden of Eden. This proved to be a time for self-examination as well, and Gordon determined that he would make his life more “Christ-like.”

Gordon decided while in Palestine that he would resign his commission and enter the service of Leopold II of Belgium for duty in the Congo. These plans changed, however, when he learned that Mohammed Ahmed—the self-proclaimed Mahdi or “Expected One”—had called for a Holy War in the Sudan and was marching on the capital of Khartoum. Though opinion in London was by no means unanimous, circumstances seemed to dictate that Gordon was the most logical choice to send to Khartoum. According to Lord Elton, a Gordon biographer, the harried government of William Ewart Gladstone found quite attractive the idea of sending “out the solitary, heroic figure, cane in hand, into the maelstrom of the Sudan.”

Gordon left for Khartoum in January, 1884, under rather vague orders that required him to evacuate the city and report on the situation in the country. After reaching Khartoum, however, he attempted to hold the city, hoping thereby to compel the government to send sufficient forces to crush the Mahdi. Sir Evelyn Baring, British Minister Resident in Cairo, had earlier expressed some reservations about sending Gordon into the Sudan when he advised the Gladstone government that “a man who habitually consults the prophet Isaiah when he is in difficulties is not apt to obey the orders of any one.” Whatever his reasons, Gordon did not evacuate the city, and Gladstone, though ultimately pressured into sending a relief force to Khartoum, did so too late. The city fell on January 26, 1885, and among those who perished defending it was General Charles Gordon.

Significance

It is difficult to imagine how Charles George Gordon might have been remembered had it not been for his heroic, if tragic, defense of Khartoum. History affords numerous examples, and this may be one, where an untimely death has intervened to save a deserving reputation and career from the ignominy of passing into history as an obscure and soon-forgotten footnote. Gordon will never endure that fate, though it is equally unlikely that he will enjoy the status of greatness accorded to one such as the first duke of Marlborough or the duke of Wellington. He would appear to be more of the ilk of T. E. Lawrence or Orde Wingate—both of whom combined eccentricity with a certain genius much like that of Gordon himself.

Save for the Crimean War, imperial interests dominated British foreign policy during the latter half of the nineteenth century, and it was from the vast stage provided by the empire itself that Gordon won wide acclaim from an appreciative British public. His exploits inspired little such enthusiasm among members of Great Britain’s political leadership, who, despite Gordon’s demonstrated gifts as an officer of exceptional ability, a natural leader, and a progressive administrator, never felt comfortable with him.

Gordon was the embodiment of many of the values that dominated the Victorian age and may have considered himself to be, as he has been described, the epitome of the Christian warrior. Whether, at Khartoum, he died in defense of his empire or his faith is a question only he could have answered. To those who mourned him, it made little difference.

Bibliography

Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen. Gordon at Khartoum. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923. A contemporary of Gordon, Blunt was initially critical of the general. He later developed a more favorable appreciation of Gordon and his work, as reflected in this book.

Buchan, John A. Gordon at Khartoum. Edinburgh: Peter B. Davies, 1934. A sympathetic treatment of Gordon that focuses on his last days at Khartoum. Buchan assesses the tragedy of Khartoum in terms of general British policy and gives some insight into the personalities who shaped that policy.

Chenevix, Charles Trench. The Road to Khartoum. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979. The passage of time provides the historian with perspective and usually new sources of information. Chenevix uses both to good advantage in this well-researched and balanced treatment of Gordon and the empire he served.

Elton, Godfrey. Gordon of Khartoum. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955. A well-written biography that scarcely conceals the author’s great admiration for his subject. Elton does not overlook Gordon’s many shortcomings, but neither does he dwell on them.

Gordon, Charles George. The Journals of Major-General Charles George Gordon, C.B., at Khartoum. Edited by Egmont A. Hake. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1885. Although these journals cover only the period between September 10 and December 14, 1884, they provide the best insight into Gordon’s mind during his last days at Khartoum.

Moore-Harrell, Alice. Gordon and the Sudan: Prologue to the Mahdiyya, 1877-1880. Portland, Oreg.: Frank Cass, 2001. Examines the years preceding the Mahdist revolution in Sudan by focusing on Gordon’s administration as governor general. Provides details about the political, economic, and social developments under Gordon’s leadership.

Nicoll, Fergus. Sword of the Prophet: The Mahdi of Sudan and the Death of General Gordon. Stroud, England: Sutton, 2004. Focuses on Mahdi’s role as the charismatic leader of the Sudanese independence movement, recounting Gordon’s death from Mahdi’s perspective.

Strachey, Lytton. “The End of General Gordon.” In Eminent Victorians. Garden City, N.Y.: Garden City, 1918. A controversial and critical treatment of Gordon that has been excoriated by the general’s more ardent defenders—particularly Lord Elton.

Thompson, Brian. Imperial Vanities: The Adventures of the Baker Brothers and Gordon of Khartoum. London: HarperCollins, 2001. A nontraditional view of Gordon, depicting him as an eccentric anarchist.